Dear Friends,
It was hard not to adopt a salmon state of mind when I visited Vancouver a few months ago. The salmon is a fish whose fate was – and still is – intermingled with the lives and well-being of the people who live along the northwest Pacific coast of North America. During our trip, I noticed that salmon appeared everywhere we went – on restaurant menus, of course, but also in beautifully carved sculptures that we saw in museums and galleries, on notecards, in paintings, on posters and on t-shirts.
If you know about the migration behavior of salmon, then you might agree that they are pretty amazing fish. Hatching from pea-sized eggs in rain-forest streams, they leave their home and journey to the ocean, where they travel thousands of miles over the course of three to six years. Those that aren’t caught for food by humans and wild animals return with unbelievable accuracy and determination to the native streams of their youth. Once there, they spawn, die and rot, their bodies richly fertilizing the land and ensuring that the cycle of life continues.
Environmental writer Richard Manning argues in his essay “Ghost Town” that local canneries and the Pacific coast communities they supported might have survived if the salmon fishing industry had focused their energies on continuity, rather than greed. He observes that the heroic and intensely focused salmon “is the engine that drives an entire ecosystem [and has the] the power to pull community.”
It sounds like Manning is championing salmon sense. And, that just might be a good idea – for my well-being and the well-being of my community. What would it be like if I were to live my life – as salmon instinctively do – focused on the single purpose of ensuring the future? What choices might I make in my work, my leisure time, and my consumption of resources? Which of my actions today contribute to the vitality of all life and which detract from it?
Applying a little more salmon sense might go a long way towards my own spiritual growth. It might help me swim against the currents of self-interest and find my way home . . . to the native stream of community and connection to all that needs my energy and persistence.
Warmly,
Terry
Rev. Terry Davis
